Driving Impressions: Chevy Volt

Let's face it, driving a Chevy Volt brings one a lot of attention from those that recognize the car—along with commonly asked questions, "What's the mileage?" and "How does it drive?" One thing I've learned since being able to sample driving in plug-in vehicles such as the Prius Plug-In Hybrid and now the Volt is that the numbers one can achieve in terms of miles per gallon are basically meaningless. Simply dividing the number of miles driven by gallons of gasoline used can vary greatly based on one's driving needs and, most importantly, the opportunity and time available to plug-in and charge the battery, which supplements "hybrid style" battery/engine efficiencies once that reserve is used up.

As for how the Volt drives, it is much like an internal combustion engine car in terms of handling and negotiating hills, but with great low-end torque pickup thanks to the characteristics of its electric motor propulsion (the gas engine charges the battery and "drives" the car as needed via an electric generator without a direct mechanical link).

But impressions of the Volt and its technology begin even before it is driven. When I drove the car home I wanted to start my time with a full tank and charge. I previously noted my troubles with the 110V chargers that came with the Prius Plug-in (above) and the all-electric Nissan Leaf in falling out of the outlet in my decades-old detached garage. The Volt came with a similar unit for overnight charge ups in 10 hours or less (a Volt owner would likely opt to install the 220V charging station to cut that time by more than half). But where the Prius and Leaf chargers came in a bag, the Volt unit snaps neatly into a compartment below the trunk floor (the only problem would be getting it out if the one piece floor is loaded with cargo).

The charger itself has its power electronics not in a rectangular brick, a la the Prius and Leaf, but a rounded shape having a handy handle for carrying, with a molded lip that allows for wrapping the charging cord around, resulting in a non-tangling, compact package. Chevy also supplies a wall mounting plate that easily attaches with screws which the power pack simply snaps into—avoiding the weight of the pack pulling the cord from the socket. At the standard charging plug on the other end, the release lever that allows pushing the plug into the Volt's charging port also turns on an LED flashlight at the tip for better visibility when charging in the dark.

Upon plugging the charger into the garage outlet, the charging electronics ran through a fault-detection routine (and it also has a half-charge rate option), and informed me that charging could not be done because my outlet had a ground fault! Neither the Prius or Leaf chargers detected this and allowed charging. After a wiring attempt to ground the outlet, the result was still not good enough to allow charging—so some car position swapping permitted being able to charge from an adequately grounded outlet on our rear deck.

Volt charging can also be programmed to take advantage of any off-peak electric rate price differentials to save charging costs (Chevy says the electric use is roughly the equivalent of $1.50/gallon gasoline). Programming also allows pre-cooling the car while on the charger to reduce onboard power demands. Thus it is important to read the owners manual! (And there are features such as local weather reports that I found, as well as an "on screen" tutorial programmed into the car's displays.)

When starting the Volt by pushing a glowing blue button, the car comes to life with a whooshing sound like something from Star Wars. I set the center console display to show the energy flow between the battery, electric motor, gas engine, and regenerative brakes. The driver's cluster display shows electric capacity left in battery-only operation, with another a small icon indicating range with the gas engine in operation. Once the EV only capacity runs out, the battery icon goes to zero and shrinks and the gauge indicating range with gas operation (shown as a fuel pump) becomes prominent.

Bob:
I am curious to know taht do you own any EV? If so whcih one you own or driven any?
In USA either EV or some other vehicle is required for personal transportation. The present Chevy Volt should/will cahnge how we use the car. Now it is expensive. The technology of all kind of batteries are not optimized. Need to do alot of researh. Do you agree? If there is not demand there is not necessity to make and invent.

Mr. Manning:
One can not compare to MINI Cooper or any other autos to Chevay Volt. This is entirely different kind of car, no car exists as of now to compare.
Battery is guranteed for 100K or eight years which ever comes first. But GM did not recomends or suggests to replace the battery. If I am wrong please correct me.
It is said that USA have enough capacity to support even if all autos are converted to EV. Or New industry will be creasted. And the OIL will be used for other purpose rather than just use it in IC autos.
Tks
Roh

Mr. Harrison:
You are correct. I won this car Chevy Volt. I bought this car in May 2011. In one word it technically advanced auto.Thanks to GM to bring this car to market. This is not a cheap car. One can by Benz for this price. Now they bring the price down to affordable level by improving the battery range to minimum of 100 miles from 40 miles. Hope to see great future of this kind of technology and no one will venture to kill it. Unitl unless the cured oil come down to $10 per barrel level.

Bob:
I own Chevy Volt. I took delivery of this vehicle on May 19th, 2011. Also I got installed 220 Volts charges under DOE program. To charge fully deplated battery it takes about 12 to 13 KW. Now you can compute how much it costs to drive about 35 to 40 miles per charge.
Chevy is one of the technologically advanced automoble in recent history of US Auto. It will take time to make this kind to maix perfection.
Many people commented about the price. It is expensive, no doubt about it. If one can offered it and need it should buy.
Everyone remembers that when Personal computer was introduced by IBM the cost was several thousands per PC. Now it is hardly couple of hundreds. When many cars of this kind produced and there is competetion to sell the price will come down. Send me your commets to my email vemula884@aol.com

Chevy Volt is completely different vehicle, can not be compared with any others. It is functional. Nissan Leaf may be advanced and pure electric. But after the battery is depleted in highway what do you do?

once the MiniSD is reported on Fueleconomy.gov, you can make a reasonable comparison. European papers also reported the Volkswagon TDI's getting in the high 50's but when it showed up, an apples to apples comparison resulted in showed 31/43 city and highway. This is nearly the same as the 35/40 reported for the VOLT in GAS only mode. The value is 95/93 in electric mode.

I am curious about the performance after the battery has been depleted & the small gas engine
now has to power both the car & recharge the battery -- it must be very underpowered & sluggish under those conditions.
Don H.

cdhmanning, it may not be any better at all. In fact, having a single motive source in a vehicle strikes me as almost always a better idea, overall, than having both an electric and an IC motor with the attendant complexity and maintenance. At 60 mpg, the Mini Cooper SD sounds like it could give any hybrid of similar size a run for its money. And you are correct: a cost often overlooked is the cost over time of the battery. But here's a difficulty: when you leave a relatively simple analysis of "what goes in the car, and what does it cost per mile" and begin to ask a more sophisticated "what is the overall cost of ownership?" then the analysis must be done with great care, so that apples are compared to apples, and skunks are compared to skunks... ;-) As to electric power distribution, your point is taken, but since we don't have the problem yet, and it's not really on the horizon yet, it's hard to worry about. Stations that change out batteries; stations that remove spent electrolyte and replace it with new electrolyte: all of these possible future infrastructures will come at a cost borne by the consumer. Here's something that's certain: if you build a better mousetrap, the world will beat a path to your door. We aren't seeing any paths being beaten for hybrids or EVs because they are not sufficiently better than Corollas, Mini Coopers, etc. for enough people in diverse needs.

Dr. Quine, I'm not sure what you mean by "modified" when you mention the mpg in electric mode. Obviously, if you are running only electric, there is a direct cost to you to recharge the battery. Similarly, there is a cost of fuel if you are running a longer distance. Both of these can be observed. What's to be modified? Comparing these numbers to any of various alternatives is useful, but modifying the numbers to reflect the inefficiency of IC engines in short trips (which is certainly true) would merely complicate the comparisons, no?